Power vacuums in international politics: a conceptual framework

Abstract

AbstractPolicymakers and academics alike frequently invoke power vacuums as important phenomena in international politics, referring to them in a diverse array of contexts ranging from civil war to the decline and retrenchment of great powers. However, students of international relations (IR) have largely neglected to seriously engage ‘power vacuum’ as a social scientific concept. This renders it virtually impossible to undergird current policy debates on power vacuums with social scientific analysis, and more generally raises doubts about the concept’s analytic utility. In this piece, I argue that ‘power vacuum’ is not merely a popular buzzword but a concept with considerable theoretical promise. I develop a conceptualisation of power vacuums as spaces that experience authority collapse. Since, in the context of international politics, organisations can claim authority on several political levels, I posit the existence of several types of power vacuums of which two appear particularly relevant to the study of IR: national and international vacuums. My conceptualisation is able to reflect the diverse ways in which the term is currently utilised, paves the way for novel research on a subject of great concern to policymakers, and uncovers the potential for closer collaboration across traditionally rigid thematic boundaries within IR. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Supplemental data and research materialsSupplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2023.2272272Notes1 On this point, but applied to the concept of ‘grand strategy,’ see Silove Citation2018, 29.2 This is the most adequate, albeit imperfect, translation of the German original, that is, ‘legitime Herrschaft.’ For similar definitions of authority, see, for instance, Deudney Citation1995, 198; Solnick Citation1998, 13; Lake Citation2016, 24; Kustermans and Horemans Citation2022, 206. As will become clear below, what I am talking about here is de facto authority, that is, authority in a descriptive, non-normative sense. On the difference between normative and descriptive conceptualisations of authority and the debate about whether it is a meaningful distinction, see Simmons Citation2016, 16.3 Emphasis removed. ‘Will to comply’ is the closest translation of the original German ‘Gehorchen wollen.’4 I thank one of the anonymous reviewers for suggesting this framing and use of the Russian doll analogy to help clarify my argument.5 As Waltz (Citation1979, 81, 88) famously posits, relations of authority are absent between the most powerful states in the system. The main reason for this is that the successful establishment of authority vis-à-vis another entity is essentially impossible without a pronounced advantage in terms of material capability. However, between particularly strong states and other, weaker political entities this precondition for authority is fulfilled, especially if the power differential between them is particularly pronounced.6 Note that I am not making a normative assumption here about the existence of great powers—let alone the creation of empires and spheres of influence—as something that is natural or desirable. After all, these states usually amass their preponderant capabilities through war and other forms of violence, and their empires and spheres of influence are similarly grounded in normatively problematic processes. Rather, my argument builds on the observation that, historically, certain states have emerged as centres of power, that they have used their power to extend their authority internationally, and that this has had important implications for the international system at large.7 Substantial disagreement persists among scholars regarding the conceptual relationship between ‘empire,’ ‘territorial control,’ and ‘hegemony.’ Notably, historians and political scientists seem to understand the relationship between these concepts in contrasting fashion. While many historians have traditionally associated empire with territorial control (for a recent example, see Immerwahr Citation2019), many political scientists today view colonialism as only one of several possible forms of empire. As Ashford (Citation2019) explains, ‘most political scientists who study … empire … today don’t focus on territory. Instead, they frame it in terms of political influence or hierarchy’ (also see Doyle Citation1986, 19-21). To avoid unnecessary conceptual confusion, in this piece I distinguish between formal empires which do entail territorial control and informal empires which do not. Both, however, represent cases of hegemony, that is, of a great power exercising spatially extensive international authority.8 Joining the referenced scholars in understanding the two concepts to refer to the exercise of spatially extensive international authority without formal territorial control, I treat them as synonyms. Note, however, that others have proposed alternative approaches to defining spheres of influence according to which the two would refer to different political phenomena. For example, see Resnick Citation2022, 566.9 In the terminology of Kustermans and Horemans (Citation2022, 209), I thus conceive of international authority as ‘authority as contract’ here. See Lake Citation2009a, 17-44.10 In the special case of a great power’s own homeland, the levels of national and international authority collapse into one. Not only does the great power rule over all sub-national entities as the central national authority, but because of its impressive power no outside political organisation elsewhere can hope to rule over it. Accordingly, in this case the great power wields both national and international authority.11 Like any other theoretical framework in the social sciences, the groundwork I have developed in this section rests on a series of foundational assumptions and ontological commitments (Hall Citation2003; Monteiro and Ruby Citation2009; Lohse Citation2017). For instance, it begins from the premise of a Westphalian world of nation states, employs an exclusively material understanding of what leads certain states to qualify as a great power, assumes that the distinction between great powers and other states is an informative one, and in privileging material capabilities and legitimacy discounts the importance of other possible sources of authority. The plausibility of the subsequent conceptual discussion of power vacuums hinges on acceptance of these theoretical commitments, meaning that it might not appeal to scholars employing a fundamentally different outlook on international politics. My hope is, however, that even these scholars might find the subsequent discussion valuable.Additional informationNotes on contributorsMoritz S. GraefrathMoritz S. Graefrath is a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow with the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute. His research, which has appeared in International Theory, operates at the intersection of IR theory and international security, focusing on great power politics, grand strategy and conceptual innovation. Email: Moritz.Graefrath@eui.eu